(A) The director of mental health and addiction services may enter into agreements with any person, political subdivision, or state agency for the sale or lease of land or facilities under the jurisdiction of the director in the following manner:

(1) The director shall designate lands and facilities that are not needed by the department of mental health and addiction services and are under the jurisdiction of the department.

(2) The director shall have a preliminary appraisal made of any lands or facilities designated under division (A)(1) of this section by a disinterested professional appraiser from the department of administrative services. The appraiser shall deliver to the director a signed certificate of the probable market value of the lands and facilities as determined from the preliminary appraisal.

(3) The director shall certify to the clerk of the house of representatives and to the clerk of the senate a list of all lands and facilities which may be sold or leased, and shall include with the list the results of the preliminary appraisals of the lands and facilities, a general description of the land and facilities, and a description of the current use of the land and facilities.

(4) Every list of lands and facilities certified by the director to the clerk of the house of representatives and to the clerk of the senate under division (A)(3) of this section, shall immediately be transmitted by the respective clerks to the committees in the house and the senate to which land conveyance bills are usually referred. If either committee files in its clerk's office, within sixty calendar days of the original certification of the lands and facilities by the director, a report disapproving the sale or lease of any lands or facilities, the sale or lease of the lands or facilities disapproved in the report shall not be made under this section. With respect to a sale or lease of lands and facilities that has not been disapproved under this division, the director shall certify those lands and facilities to the auditor of state.

(5) After certification to the auditor of state under division (A)(4) of this section, the director shall have a formal appraisal made of the lands and facilities by a disinterested professional appraiser from the department of administrative services. The director may accept the formal appraisal or may reject it and order a new formal appraisal by a disinterested professional appraiser who shall not be from the department of administrative services. The director may then sell or lease the lands or facilities in accordance with this division and department of administrative services procedures as set forth in Chapter 123. of the Revised Code. Any such deed or lease shall be prepared and recorded pursuant to section 5301.13 of the Revised Code. The department of administrative services shall be the sole agent for the state and shall complete the sale or lease of the lands or facilities, up to and including the closing thereof, after the director approves the sale price. The director and the director of administrative services may, if it is determined to be in the best interests of the state, agree to sell surplus land for an amount less than the formal appraised value but shall not sell any land for less than two-thirds of the formal appraised value.

(B) Coincident with the certification made under division (A)(3) of this section concerning lands which may be sold, the director shall give written notice of the director's intention to sell the lands by certified mail to the executive officer of each county, township, municipal corporation, and school district within which the lands are situated. In each notice, the director shall specify the conditions under which the lands shall be sold, including whether the lands will be sold as a single unit or sold in specific parcels that the director designates, and shall solicit from the subdivision offers to purchase the lands in accordance with the conditions the director has specified and at a price equal to the preliminary appraised value determined pursuant to division (A)(2) of this section. If, within thirty days of having certified the lands to the auditor of state under division (A)(4) of this section, the director receives from the executive officer of a subdivision a written offer to purchase the lands at or above the price specified in the director's original notice to the officer, provided such offer otherwise complies with the conditions of purchase specified in the director's original notice, the director shall forthwith enter into an agreement to sell the lands to the subdivision. The agreement shall incorporate any and all terms that are acceptable to both parties and that are consistent with the terms specified in the director's original notice. If no offer to purchase is received by the director within the thirty-day period provided in this division, the director's original notice shall be considered withdrawn and the director shall be under no obligation to sell any of the lands specified in the notice to the subdivision. If two or more offers to purchase the same parcels of land are received by the director within the required time period from the executive officers of two or more subdivisions, the director shall accept the offer or offers to purchase that the director considers to be in the best interests of the state and of the department of mental health and addiction services and shall proceed to enter into agreements of sale pursuant to this division. If all of the director's original notices relating to a given parcel of land become withdrawn, the director may thereupon proceed to sell the parcel as otherwise provided in this section. No subdivision may commence an action to enforce the provisions of this division, or to seek any other legal or equitable remedy relative to this division, with respect to any lands certified to the auditor of state under division (A)(4) of this section, except within sixty days of the date on which the lands were so certified.

(C) Any agreement under this section shall be at such terms as will be in the best interests of the state and the department of mental health and addiction services. However, the terms of any agreement for sale shall include a provision that the purchaser will abide by any comprehensive plan for the area that has been adopted by the local government in which the property is located before the parties enter into the agreement. No lease shall be of a duration greater than fifteen years. No agreement, except an agreement entered into under division (B) of this section, shall be entered into before the proposal to sell or lease the land or facilities has been advertised once each week for four weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in every county in which the lands or facilities are located and if the preliminary appraised value of the land to be sold or leased is more than one hundred thousand dollars, advertisement shall be made once each week for four weeks in at least two newspapers in the state having a daily circulation of one hundred thousand or more. If a city in this state is served by more than one newspaper having a circulation of one hundred thousand or more, advertisement may be made in only one of the newspapers serving the city.

(D) Each deed or lease prepared and recorded pursuant to this section shall contain a recital stating that all provisions of this section have been complied with. The recital shall be considered binding and conclusive against all subdivisions of the state provided no action has been commenced pursuant to division (B) of this section. Any deed or lease containing such a recital shall be conclusively presumed to have been executed in compliance with this section insofar as title or other interest of any bona fide purchasers, lessees, or transferees of the property is concerned.

(E) Nothing in this section shall be construed as establishing a precedent for the disposal of state lands and facilities by other departments of the state.

Renumbered from § 5119.39 and amended by 132nd General Assembly File No. TBD, HB 111, §1, eff. 9/28/2018.

Effective Date: 03-09-1999.